Building high-performance teams requires a wealth of leadership skills and depth of self-perception that not all of us possess, often leading to frustration at the poor performance of your team. For example:

• What does it really mean when you feel frustrated with your team?
• Are they just poor performers?
• Does HR need to “get a clue” and hire better people for you?

Or, perhaps, you direct frustration at yourself, as team leader, instead. In fact, when you feel frustrated with your team, it’s very likely that they are just as frustrated with you and your leadership.

When three “sister” emotions, frustration, hopelessness, and helplessness, come to visit you as you think about your team, it is an indicator that something needs to be done urgently to shift the situation. Don’t wait for these emotions to become the baseline of your everyday functioning.

Common Sources of Frustration in the Workplace

How do find yourself in the repeating cycle of frustration?

Frustration shows up as a response to our unfulfilled needs. It’s a signal from our emotional system that aims to attract our attention to something important. Thus, although the experience of frustration is not pleasant, it serves an important function. It directs us toward the resolution.

Avoiding and ignoring this emotion will lead to far more serious consequences: being stuck in the frustrations accompanied by helplessness and hopelessness influences our self-esteem, the ability to problem solve, recharge and sustain drive and motivation. With the time, our brains learn the new pattern – they learn to stay frustrated instead of being resourceful, reinforcing the feeling of guilt and shame instead of growth, learning, and creativity.

The sources of frustration can be external, for example: changes in our business environment that we cannot control, or internal, such as the mindset that blocks us from finding solutions and that keeps us in repetitive and not effective behaviors. The more we repeat these behaviors, the stronger the frustration becomes, since we do not find the resolution, but keep running on the same hamster wheel.

While the “quick fix” to frustration is finding a resolution, it is not as simple as it sounds. Being in a leadership role implies that you will be faced with situations that are complex, when satisfying the needs of all participants will seem mission impossible. It is important to know your habitual reaction to frustration to avoid falling into the trap of your automatic conditioned response.

Do you have a tendency to compromise your needs for the sake of others, allowing your frustration to build inside, while you are “saving” your team? Or, do you approach frustration with “get over it-now and fast” approach and try to push through it?

It’s important to remember that your style of coping with frustration (which you have learned many years back in your early stages of life) can be adjusted and re-trained in your adult life. It requires step-by-step work, which begins with simply paying attention to frustration and noticing it – the step that we often skip in the rush of everyday life.

Leading High Performance Teams

Some of the common causes of frustration are:

• Communication problems – People aren’t communicating effectively in your team, resulting in misunderstandings and wasted effort. You have difficulties in communication with certain types of people and struggle to deliver your message effectively to them. As a result, they are not doing what you expect them to do – a common cause of frustration among people in leadership roles.
• Lack of rewards and recognition – Team members who feel as if they aren’t being rewarded or acknowledged for good work and effort (especially extra effort) begin to think that it’s a waste of time and they are taken for granted regardless of how much they do. The reward system defines the behaviors – and there are several levels of rewards based on the people’s needs.
• Limited career progression – Sometimes people are frustrated by the limited opportunity for promotions and growth in their team. Look for ways to give them opportunities to develop, even if they can’t get a promotion right now. Keep the balance between new challenges and sustainable growth in already mastered areas – both for yourself and your team.
• Process problems – Inefficient, slow processes can be a huge cause of frustration – for everyone. “This is a waste of my time, there is an easier way!” For people who are action takers and possess an entrepreneurial spirit, staying in a working environment that is too slow or too bureaucratic can be a very frustrating experience.
• Unfulfilling relationships – Whether you are leaning toward a relationship-oriented or result-oriented style yourself, the importance of human connection cannot be overestimated. High-performance teams require high levels of cohesiveness, which shows up in high-quality relationships and inner culture these teams possess. Unless you plan to lead a team of robots in the next 10-15 years, relationship mastery is a number one leadership skill to acquire. Being connected to others helps to move beyond frustration.
• Not being heard – When a team member makes the effort to speak up with improvement ideas without any of them being accepted, frustration is sure to follow. The tendency is for them to think, “Why bother?” People appreciate validation – even if their ideas cannot be implemented right away, there is a big difference between a “Thank you we will think about it” response and a thoughtful follow up that will encourage them to take initiative in the future.

It’s far better to have a frank discussion with a team member than to guess at the source of their frustration – or of your own. If you hope to gain clarity about the frustration you’re feeling, you will need to understand where it comes from. In other words, a dialogue is a key to building high-performance teams and reducing frustration if/when they do not meet your expectations.

Do you find yourself struggling to find the path to building high-performance teams? Would you like to find the help you need to improve your leadership skills? If so, let’s chat. Click here to schedule your FREE Discovery Call.